Expanding Maneuver Warfare in IT

“Cash for Clunkers” Should Have Used the Cloud!

By G C Network | August 24, 2009

Rich Bruklis wrote an excellent essy on how the government missed a perfect opportunity to use cloud computing. In “Cloud Opportunity Missed” he writes: “It appears that the voucher system…

US Navy Experiments With Secure Cloud Computing

By G C Network | August 20, 2009

This week in San Diego, CA the US Navy held the initial planning conference for Trident Warrior ’10. The Trident Warrior series is the premier annual FORCEnet Sea Trial Event…

GSA To Present On Cloud Initiative at NCOIC Plenary

By G C Network | August 13, 2009

A General Services Administration (GSA) representative is now scheduled to provide a briefing on the agency’s cloud computing initiative during a “Best Practices for Cloud Initiatives using Storefronts” session on…

FAA CIO Focuses on Cybersecurity

By G C Network | August 12, 2009

During this week Federal Executive Forum, FAA CIO Dave Bowen mentioned protection against software vulnerabilities, wireless intrusion and website vulnerabilities as his top cybersecurity priorities. As the Assistant Administrator for…

DHS Asst. Secretary Addresses Cybersecurity Priorities

By G C Network | August 11, 2009

Greg Schaffer, Assistant Secretary for CyberSecurity & Communications for the US Department of Homeland Security, sees Trusted Internet Connections, EINSTEIN, and front line defense of the nation’s networks as top…

US DoD Chief Security Officer on Cybersecurity Priorities

By G C Network | August 10, 2009

In a Federal Executive Forum interview, Robert Lentz, Chief Security Officer for the US Department of Defense, highlighted the departments cybersecurity priorities. Mr. Lentz is the Deputy Assistant Secretary of…

Twitter Under Denial of Service Attack

By G C Network | August 6, 2009

Multiple sources are reporting that Twitter continues to be under a denial of service attack. Some are speculating that this represents the power of a coordinated bot network attack. For…

NCOIC Holding Full Day Cloud Computing Session

By G C Network | August 5, 2009

The Network Centric Operations Industry Consortium (NCOIC) will be holding a one-day cloud computing session during its plenary meetings, 21-25 September at the Fair Lakes Hyatt in Fairfax, VA. A…

Sevatec a New Player in the Federal Cloud Computing Market

By G C Network | August 3, 2009

Just in time for the new Federal Cloud Computing Storefront, Sevatec, Inc. is announcing the development of a toolkit to help federal agencies transform their enterprise architectures to cloud computing…

GSA Releases Cloud Computing RFQ

By G C Network | July 31, 2009

Following through on a much anticipated action, GSA released their Cloud Computing Request For Quotation (RFQ) today. Cloud computing is a major part of President Obama’s reform effort and this…

Earlier this week I published “Cloud Computing: The Dawn of Maneuver Warfare in IT Security” via Ulitzer. In publishing the article my intent was to explore the more dynamic approach to information security offered by cloud computing. Although the conversation continues in earnest, today I would like to highlight Ben’s thoughts from Iron Fog:
“What about managing virus outbreaks, patch deployment and vulnerability detection?
managing virus outbreaks – If I can scale my security infrastructure rapidly, I can scan my distributed filesystem and workstations, I can hunt down and remove infections – in theory I can scale my cloud rapidly enough to combat warhol-esque worms.
patch deployment – if I need to force patches across my environment, I can deploy a swarm of servers that will connect to every server and workstation in my enterprise and force the patch down (after I’ve spun up a multiple VM’s to test/socialise the patch against my standard configurations).
vulnerability detection – Scanning a class B sized network can take a while, but what if I can launch a few hundred servers and ask them to scan a less than a class C each, in parallel (note: this idea wasn’t mine, credit to Richard at Enomaly) – I can get near-realtime vulnerability intelligence on my environment at relatively low cost. Running a few hundred EC2 servers for less than an hour is pretty cheap, especially if compared against buying a whole bunch of expensive scanning appliances (then again, there’s nessus).”
These examples are perfect extensions on the idea of maneuver warfare in information technology.  His post also brings up some concerns that need to be addressed.  Let’s keep the ideas coming.
Follow me on https://Twitter.com/Kevin_Jackson
Follow me at https://Twitter.com/Kevin_Jackson

G C Network